Where Does Alpine Store Settings and Mail?
Alpine .pinerc and .addressbook in home on Linux and Mac, and how the Setup screens reveal where mail goes.
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Alpine keeps its entire configuration in a single .pinerc file in your home directory, with contacts in .addressbook beside it. No registry, no AppData tree, no daemon state to chase. Copying two dotfiles reproduces your whole client setup.
Mail itself lives wherever your collections point, which varies by design. Local folders, remote IMAP and news collections each declare their paths in .pinerc. The Setup screens inside Alpine print those paths plainly, which beats guessing at dotfiles.
Where Alpine stores this, by platform
~/.pinerc
The whole configuration in one file, with contacts in ~/.addressbook beside it. Mail locations come from folder collections inside it; read them under Setup, not by guessing paths.
~/.pinerc
Same dotfiles in home as Linux for Homebrew and built copies. Use ls -a in Terminal since Finder hides dotfiles.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find where Alpine stores my mail?
Open Alpine, go to Setup, then folder collections. Each collection prints its full path or server, which is authoritative. Local maildir and mbox paths differ per setup, so the screen beats any guide.
How do I move Alpine to a new machine?
Copy .pinerc and .addressbook into the new home directory, then copy whatever local mail folders your collections reference. Remote IMAP mail needs no transfer at all.
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